MATERIAL SELECTION

&
ADAPTATION
TSLB3033
PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE IN ELT
The materials selected must be:
Suitable to the pupils’ proficiency level
Aimed at getting pupils to
speak/read/listen/write
Culturally familiar to pupils
Interesting, engaging and motivating
Geared towards real life situation (involving
social interaction)
The materials selected must be:
O The amount of time spent in understanding
the materials must not be greater than the
time spent on the output
O Match the goals and objectives of the syllabus
or language lessons
O Consistent with the teaching-learning
situation/ approach
O Authentic – use e.g. of language produced for
some real purpose of their own
O Reasonably priced if cost is involved
The materials selected must be:
O Make learning easier
O Create joy and interest in the learners
O Attractive, colourful and durable
O Clear to see (visual) or hear (audio) and the
meaning of the text should be clear, not
overwhelmed with idiomatic expressions
etc.
O Appropriate font size and colour
O Usable in a classroom situation.
MATERIAL ADAPTATION
O Materials adaptation means
matching materials with the
learner’s needs, the teacher’s
demands and administration’s
purpose.
OWHY DO YOU NEED TO
ADAPT MATERIALS?
REASONS FOR ADAPTING
O Not enough grammar coverage in general
O Not enough practice of grammar points of
particular difficulty to these learner
O The communicative focus means that
grammar is presented unsystematically.
O Reading passages contains too much
unknown vocabulary.
REASONS FOR ADAPTING
O Comprehension questions are too easy,
because the answers can be lifted directly from
the text with no real understanding
O Listening passages are inauthentic, because
they sound too much like written material being
read out
O Subject matter inappropriate for learners of
this age and intellectual level.
O Photographs and other illustrative material not
culturally acceptable
REASONS FOR ADAPTING
O Amount of material too much or too little to cover in the
time allocated to lessons
O No guidance for teachers on handling group work and
role play activities with a large class
O Dialogues too formal and not representative of everyday
speech
O Audio material difficult to use because of problems to
do with room size and technical equipment
O Too much or too little variety in the activities
O Vocabulary list and key to the exercises would be helpful
O Accompanying tests needed
HOW DO YOU ADAPT
MATERIAL?
ADAPTATION PROCEDURE
O ADDING
O DELETING
O MODIFYING
O SIMPLIFYING
O REORDERING
 ADDING
O Addition is an adaptation procedure which
involves supplementation of extra linguistic
items and activities to make up for the
inadequacy/ insufficiency of materials.
O Materials are supplemented by putting more
into them, while taking into account the
practical effect on time allocation
 ADDING
O Addition of extra materials is necessary/
applicable/ appropriate when the following
situations are faced
O Areas are not covered sufficiently.
O Texts/pictures/tasks are not provided.
O Texts/pictures/tasks are fewer than needed.
O Tasks are limited in scope.
O Tasks are of limited range.
 ADDING
O For e.g. the materials contain practice in the
pronunciation of minimal pairs(bit/bet, hate/hat,
ship/chip) but enough e.g. of the difficulties for
learners with particular L1 such as Japanese
speakers may need more l/r practice, Arabic
speakers more p/b, Spanish b/v etc.
O More grammar exercises, parallel reading passages
with same structure etc.
O The techniques are being applied within the
framework of original ideas; the model is not itself
changed
 ADDING
O Adding can also be done by expanding the
materials to be used for different skills.
O E.g. If there is insufficient coverage of the skill
of listening, the reading passage provided may
also be paralleled by provision of listening
comprehension material, using the same
vocabulary and ideas but presented through a
different medium, making sure that it is
authentic in terms of the spoken language.
DELETING/OMITTING
O Deletion is an adaptation procedure which
involves removal of some of the linguistic
items and activities which are found to be
extra and unnecessary.
O So, deletion is a process in which materials
are taken out rather than added.
 DELETING
O Materials should be reduced through omission
when the following situations are faced:
O Learners are clear about a language point.
O Learners are competent in a skill.
O There are too many tasks on a particular
area/point.
O The item/area concerned is not a priority.
O The item/task is not well designed.
O The item/task is not well-suited to its aim(s).
O The topic is not appropriate for learners.
 DELETING
O Deleting or omitting is the opposite of adding
O E.g. The exercise is too general, so choose only
the specific ones
O Addition and deletion often work together
O Material may be taken out and then replaced
with something else
O However, the internal balance of the lesson or
the syllabus is not necessarily altered.
MODIFYING/CHANGING:
O Modification means changes in different aspects
of materials, such as linguistic level, exercises,
assessment system and so on.
O A very general term in the language applying
any kind of change
O Rewriting – rewriting a reading passage and
deliver it orally or writing exercises from notes
O Restructuring – change the structure of
activity/exercise to suit the learners/class eg big
class role-play
 MODIFYING
O Modification of materials is applicable/
appropriate in the following situations:
O Texts are of inappropriate length.
O Materials are inappropriate to the aim.
O Materials are inappropriate to the learners’
age/ experience.
O Materials are unclear, confusing or misleading.
O Tasks are badly designed.
 SIMPLIFYING
O This procedure is employed to make materials
less complicated or easier to understand.
O If the language teaching material is found to be
difficult or mechanical for the target learner, it
(material) can be made suitable for the learner
through the process of simplification.
 SIMPLIFYING
O Many elements of a language course can be
simplified, including the instructions and
explanations that accompany exercises and
activities, and even the visual layout of
material so that it becomes easier to see
how different parts fit together.
O Danger is sometimes when a teacher wish
to simplify grammar or speech it distorts the
meaning or the natural language.
 SIMPLIFYING
O We can simplify according to:
O Sentence structure – sentence length is
reduced, or complex sentence is rewritten as
a number of simple ones
O Lexical content – the number of new words
is controlled by reference to what students
have already learned.
O Grammatical structures – by changing
passive to active voice, simple past to
simple present, reported into direct speech
etc.
 RE-ARRANGING/
RE-ORDERING
O Rearrangement is a procedure of materials
adaptation through which different parts of a course
book are arranged in a different order or sequence.
O Rearrangement of materials helps to make them
comparatively more interesting and appropriate for
the learner as well as the teacher.
O This may mean adjusting the sequence of
presentation within a unit, or taking units in a
different sequence from that originally intended
WEB-BASED LEARNING
O Refers to learning which uses the web as an integral
part of a lesson, sequence of lessons or a whole course
O Online learning and e-learning are other terms used to
refer to this approach to teaching-learning
O Web-based learning is one way to learn, using web-
based technologies or tools in a learning process.
O In other words, learner uses mainly computers to
interact with the teacher, other students and learning
material.
O Web-based learning consists of technology that
supports traditional classroom training and online
learning environments. “
WEB-BASED LEARNING
O 3 CATEGORIES OF WEB-BASED LEARNING
O ASYNCHRONOUS COMMUNICATION
O SYNCHRONOUS COMMUNICATION
O HYPERTEXT
 ASYNCHRONOUS
COMMUNICATION
O Communication between people using networked computers
is called Computer-mediated communication (CMC)
O In asynchronous CMC the participants in the communication
do not have to be sitting at their respective computers at the
same time.
O Electronic mail (e-mail) and web bulletin boards are the
commonest forms of asynchronous CMC.
O E.g. bulletin boards hosted by WWF or Green Peace. Would
attract people interested in environment and conservation
issues
O A feature of this form of comm. is the delay btw the time a
message is sent and the time it is received and responded to.
 SYNCHRONOUS CMC
O Synchronous CMC is comm. in real time
where all participants must be sitting at
their computers at the same time.
O Facilitated by software such as ICQ or AOL
Instant Messenger
O Messages are sent instantly, and comm.
Takes place live, as on the telephone.
O Comm. Can be one-to-one or many-to-many
 HYPERTEXT
O A system of organizing documents in different
databases via hyperlinks organised by world
wide web (www)
O Just point and click on the link provided in the
current text
O Links lead to texts, graphics, audio and video etc
e.g. electronic newspaper, home pages of
people, course materials, advertisements etc.
O The terms hypertext or hypermedia are used to
refer to those links
WEB-BASED LEARNING
O “Pure" web-based courses are wholly based
on computer and online possibilities.
O In this case all the communication and
learning activities are done online.
O On the other hand, web-based courses may
have some face-to-face sessions besides the
distant learning tasks.
O In this case they are called blended courses
as they blend web-based activities with face-
to-face activities.
WEB-BASED LEARNING
O Web-based learning can be also formal or
informal.
O Formal web-based learning is based on
purpose and learning activities are
organised by teachers.
O Informal learning takes place while you are
searching material from the Internet.
O It is self-paced, depending on your goals and
ambition to learn.
REASONS FOR WEB-BASED
LEARNING
O Web-based learning provides many different
kinds of course material and many
alternative modes of engaging with such
material
O MOE - a way to enable students to become
lifelong learners and to be able to practise
self-paced, self-assessed, and self-directed
learning
 REASONS BASED ON
CHANGES IN THE WORLD
O Knowledge explosion
O Telecommunication revolution
O The web has an important role in educating young
people
O Learning English through the web would
simultaneously result in student learning to operate
freely within this knowledge-carrying environment
O Helps the students to learn how to learn e.g. learning
to locate info & critically evaluating different sources of
info using different criteria; learning how to use info
obtained to fulfil different purposes
 REASONS BASED ON
CHANGES IN THE WORLD
O Changing world semiotics
O The way we communicate in the world has changed
dramatically as a result of the telecommunication
evolution
O To live in the world today one needs to be equipped
with the skills necessary to handle the new forms
of comm. that the advent of computer has
spawned
 REASONS BASED ON
CHANGES IN THE WORLD
O Greater access to computers
O Once computers were very expensive and
only large org could afford to own them
O The computers were also large needed lots
of space
O Now computers are small and cheap
 REASONS BASED ON
CHANGES IN THE WORLD
O Growing importance of English among more
people
O In countries where English is not a native
language, there is a growing need to increase
exposure to English to bridge the gap between
those with more exposure to English and those
with less exposure to English
O The net provides unlimited opportunities for
exposure, as English is the dominant language
on the web.
 ADVANTAGES &
DIASDAVANTAGES OF WBL
Factor Advantage Disadvantage
Teachers and learners
New learning theories have to adopt new
and approaches enable learning theories and
to learn and teach in a approaches.
more effective way. Role changes of teachers
Students can and learners may cause
Learning
experience a sense of frustration and
theories and
equality. confusion.
approaches
Course work and Without the common
challenging structures of a traditional
assignments are class, students may feel
stimulating for lost or confused about
knowledge building. course activities and
deadlines.
Factor Advantages
Students can work at their
own pace, when they want.
Web-based learning enables
to study more deeply areas
of interest.
It encourages exploring
material on your own and
Independent
enables to skip over
and learner
materials already mastered.
centred
Web-based learning
learning
supports personalised
learning and is self-directed.
It builds self-knowledge and
self-confidence and
encourages students to take
responsibility for their own
learning.
Disadvantages
Learners who are not self-
motivated, self-directed and
independent are not able to
plan their own learning and
may have problems.
Material and assignment
instructions might be too
complicated to understand
independently.
Some of the students may
lose motivation without certain
deadlines.
Independent learning requires
certain skills: technological,
communication skills, self-
motivation and effective study
habits.
Factor Advantages Disadvantages

Web-based learning
enables to join
discussions at any
hour and encourages
Learners with low
also those who don't
motivation or bad study
like to speak.
habits may fall behind.
Flexibility It facilitates learning
They may have difficulties
through a variety of
in organizing their
activities.
learning.
Learners have access
to courses, which
enables to reduce
travel time and costs.
Factor Advantages
Web-based learning
provides interaction
between students and
instructors.
Interaction Students can share their
ideas with other students,
which may help to
understand the material
better.
Students can study
anywhere and anytime if
they have an access to
computer and Internet.
Access to Web-based learning
material provides continual and also
direct access to materials,
resources in many different
formats and of good
quality.
Disadvantages
Prohibits those who are
not active learners in a
group.
Human contact is missing
as interaction is relied on
electronic
communication.
Problems with technology
might prevent the access:
low speed connection,
difficulties to download
information, problems
with communication
tools. Some courses and
materials might be out of
date. There may be lack
of quality control.
Factor Advantages Disadvantages

Working on the web Teachers are overloaded

offers an opportunity with students and their
to communicate with contacts.
students using e-mail, Students may feel isolated
Contact
discussion boards etc. from the instructor and
with
Teachers receive classmates.
instructors
students' work quickly Instructor may not always
and they provide be available when
timely feedback to students are studying or
students' questions. need help.
Factor Advantages Disadvantages

When you learn to use

one browser and
Managing computer files
certain software, you
and online learning
will probably be able to
software can be complex
use other browsers
for students with
and software as well.
beginner-level computer
Some of the software
skills.
and web browsers are
Use of Poor usability may cause
free of charge on the
technology troubles with navigation,
internet.
computers crash or have
Web-based learning
viruses, impossible to
develops knowledge of
send mails.
the Internet and
Software and access to
computer skills that
the Internet and e-mail is
help learners
not free all the time
throughout their lives
and careers.